


Buried Alive

by For_the_love_of_fiction



Series: Buried Six Feet Down [2]
Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Bones inspired, F/M, Lunch Break Boredom, Not Crossover, What do you do on your lunch break?, seriously, sorta crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 07:29:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20870480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/For_the_love_of_fiction/pseuds/For_the_love_of_fiction
Summary: An unexpected occurrence has Veronica reaching out for help.Veronica's POV.A NotCrossover with Bones. Don't really need to know Bones, but will recognize elements of the story if you've seen season 1 of Bones.





	Buried Alive

**Author's Note:**

> Had some time during lunch today and wrote this. Hope you like!

She groans. Her head is pounding. What happened? 

Her head is pounding, and she’s got a sensitive spot on her abs. It’s really dark. Her fingers quest outwards, feeling the floor. It’s metal, cold and hard. She brushes a cylindrical object, and it skids across the floor. She scoots across the floor carefully after it, there’s no point in big movement that may be halted painfully by walls or roofs. 

It’s a flashlight. She clicks it on and sweeps it across the room. It looks like a small shipping crate. 

Her memory is fuzzy. She was working late at the library studying for the upcoming test. Then… nothing. 

Her bag. Her bag is missing, as a sweep of the crate with the flashlight confirms. No taser, no phone. 

She studies the door. It opens outwards, and a test push is another confirmation of her fears. 

Wait, is that a window? Why would there be a window on a shipping crate? 

She points the light at the window and sucks in her breath. Dirt.

_ Don’t panic Veronica. Panicking leads to bad decisions.  _

A thought hits her and she feels down her leg to her boot. After the incident in high school where she was locked in her own trunk, she’s taken to carrying a burner phone in her boot. 

She pulls it out and powers it up. Luckily she had charged it two days ago, and the battery was at 80%. She had specifically chosen a model that kept its charge over a week with no problem. It even has signal. It’s weak, definitely not full bars, but enough for a phone call. 

But who to call?

Her dad took off yesterday for a bounty, he may not be able to get her call, let alone help. 

Logan. No, Wallace. He’d drop everything to help.

_ Ring... Ring... Ring… _

“Hey, you’ve reached Wallace, Master of the World. Leave a message, and I’ll get back to you.”

Damn. 

She doesn’t have Mac’s number. She doesn’t know too many other people who’s number she know. Weevil just changed his, and she doesn’t know the new one.

Logan. 

He’ll help. She knows this. Without a doubt, he’d move heaven and earth to help her. But the way they left things….

She dials before she can stop herself. He’s her best bet and she knows it. She can’t afford to play with her life at this point. 

_ Ring… Ring… _

“Lo?” He sounds like she’s woken him up from sleep. Idly, she wonders what time it is, the last she remembers, it was pushing 3 am. 

“Logan?” She’s trying really hard to breathe. Tampering her panic. It wouldn’t help.

“Veronica? What’s wrong?” 

A laugh escapes her before she can stop it. She was right. Logan was the best choice. She feels herself relax a little bit, but also the reality of the situation is starting to overwhelm her. “I don’t know where I am. He took my phone. Had a burner in my boot. Old habits.” She is grateful for those old habits at this point. Most of the time, they bring nothing but trouble, but occasionally, they save her life. 

“I need more than that, Veronica. And give me a minute, I’ll track the phone.”

She smiles slightly. It’s comforting, his voice. His conviction to help. It makes her believe, that maybe, just maybe, she has a chance to get out of here alive. “Can’t track this one the normal way. Whole point of the phone. Get to Mac, she can do it.” She didn’t want to admit that he wasn’t her first call. That he was her only choice, but, “I don’t know her number off the top of my head.”

“Got it. I still need more details, Veronica. What happened? Was it a case?”

Another laugh escapes her before she can stop it. He knew her so well. She had fought herself so hard on this one. She had done so much damage in Neptune, to herself, to her friends, even to her enemies. Cold turkey. It was best for everyone. And then this case had popped onto her radar. So much temptation. It was fascinating, missing kids, ransoms, and a completely unknown assailant. 

“No, no case. Or at least, not mine. Do you know, I haven’t taken a case since Neptune? Quit cold turkey. I didn’t even look up my roommate before I met her. Progress, some would say. Look at where that got me.” 

“Okay. Ronnie, you got to give me more than that.”

Deflection. It’s what she’s doing, even though she really doesn’t mean to. Old habits, indeed. 

A sudden thought hits her. So hard she can’t breathe. She did so much damage. To Logan. What if this is the last time she gets to talk to him. What if this is her last chance? She chokes out, “I’m sorry.” For everything. For getting him involved in all of her crap. For being her only hope now. If she doesn’t get through this, she’s not sure what he’s going to do. Despite her best efforts at staying calm, tears are now streaming down her face, and she’s trying to regulate her breathing so she doesn’t panic Logan more than he’s already panicking. 

It doesn’t help. His voice is twinged with desperation as he says, “Ronnie? Please. Tell me what’s going on.”

Facts. They’ll help. “Okay. Okay.” Deep breath. “Have you heard anything about the Gravedigger?” See what he knows, then go from there. There’s a chance he knows something. They only take rich kids, and that circle is small, even in southern California. 

“Uh… Possibly? I haven’t really been paying too much attention to much recently.”

Okay, so start from the beginning. It’s helping her to pull herself together. “Kids go missing. Rich kids. Ages range from 11 to 21. Parents get a ransom call. Give me x amount, and I’ll tell you where to dig up your kid.” Short and to the point. 

_ Pull yourself together, Mars. _

She can practically hear the gears turning in his head, trying to line up what she’s said with any rumors he’s heard. “What do you mean? Why would they have to dig up somebody?”

“They’re always attacked alone, no witnesses. Taser. There’s burn marks. Probably some kind of chloroform or something else to knock them out. Then they’re put in a container, large, with enough air for hours. Buried. The ones who pay get GPS coordinates to the container. The ones who don’t pay? Never found.” She was doing good until the end. Before, it was something that happened to other people. Now it could be her fate. 

“Ronnie?” She can hear it in his voice. The strain. The fear. He’s hoping that she’s not about to confirm his fears. Unfortunately, she can’t give him that reprieve. 

She doesn’t want to admit it. Saying it out loud makes it real. But she has to. “I don’t know where I am. I-” She’s openly sobbing now, and she can’t seem to stop herself. It’s going to scare him, he’s always told her how tough she was. “I was taken. My dad-” she cuts herself off again. How does she say it? Her dad may not even get the call. Her dad may not even know she’s gone until she’s  _ gone _ . Her dad probably couldn’t even pay the ransom if he got the call.

“Your dad doesn’t have the money. But I do.” He says it so matter-of-fact. Like he’s finally found something to hold on to. She doesn’t want to take that from him. But she has to. He needs all the facts. 

“Logan.” She’s trying to break the news gently. “Dad went to catch a bail jumper. He told me service would be spotty. I don’t know if he’ll even get the call in time. I don’t know if he’ll even know before…” She trails off. She still can’t say it. That would make it  _ real. _

“Why were you even targeted? I thought you said that you quit?” She hears screeching tires and road noises. She hopes that he’s driving safe. Not just because he’s her last hope, but because a small part of her says that there’s no reason to hope if he’s gone. 

Focusing on the question, she answers, “It got out. What I used to do. People have been coming up to me and asking for favors. Like before. I always refuse, but…” Some asshole freshman had dug up an article on her from the Aaron Echolls trial. It had stated that she worked with her father in his PI agency and ever since, she’s been bombarded with requests from people. ‘Follow my boyfriend, he’s cheating’ to ‘my professor’s an ass, can you find dirt on him?’. She’s always stuck to the hard line. ‘No. I don’t do that anymore.’

But this case had been a siren song. Not enough to get her back in the game, but enough that when people gossiped about it around her, she’d eavesdrop. 

“If he knew and felt threatened…”

“Yeah.”

She doesn’t say more. She doesn’t have to. He’s always had her number, and now his presence is all she needs. And he knows it. 

She checks her phone. Signal still enough, but not great. Battery… 50%. She needs it to be connected for Mac’s trace. She also wants some extra time in case…. In case they can’t get to her. 

“Logan?”

“Yeah?”

“I need to hang up for a bit.”

“What? No!” She hears honking and it terrifies her. “I’m ten minutes from Mac’s! Just stay on the line, please!”

“Mac can’t track this phone unless it’s on. Unless it’s actively making a call. I need to conserve battery. Can’t find me if it’s dead.” She’s silent for a beat and then, “Also, talking takes up my air. It’ll only shave off minutes, but…” It’s a thought that she’s had a few times since waking up, but she’s been doing a good job of ignoring it until now. 

He swears colorfully, and she smiles a little bit. He’s always had a way with words. “Fine. Turn the ringer up loudly. You can’t miss this call.”

Another laugh escapes her. “Don’t worry, I’m definitely answering the next time you call me.”

“Yeah, well, worrying is kinda my default state. Especially when it comes to tiny blondes.” Her smile grows bigger. She never knew that she’d laugh this much before her imminent death. 

“Goodbye Logan. And thanks.”

“For what?”

_ For everything. _ “For coming to find me. For helping me after the way things went last time. For being there when I need you.”  _ For being you. For loving me. _

It’s his voice that chokes up this time. “Always.” And she believes it.

She hangs up the call and closes the phone. 

She stares into the darkness, flashlight off to conserve battery and stuffed in her boot, phone held in her hand like a lifeline. 

The minutes creep by. She’s spiraling in her thoughts. What if Mac can’t find her? What if Logan doesn’t get there in one piece? What if… what if…?

The tears that she had stopped, start again. This time, with no witnesses, she lets them fall, letting herself give into the fear for just a moment. 

It helps just a bit. She’s starting to even out her breathing again, and her deathgrip on the phone has relaxed infinitesimally. 

When the phone rings, she jumps a bit, but answers, skipping any pleasantries. “Is Mac there?” Mac can fix this. Mac can find her. She’s holding onto that thought. 

“Yeah, V. I’m here. Give me a second.” Mac’s voice is small, probably on speakerphone from across the room. 

She sighs in relief, holding the phone to her forehead for a split second. “If I’m right, I have a few more hours of air left. Hopefully enough time for you to come get me.”

“Wait, hours? What’s going on?” Mac’s voice is getting panicked now. She didn’t know?

“You didn’t tell her?” She’s a bit frustrated with Logan. How can Mac do her job if she doesn’t have the facts?

“Kinda on a deadline, Veronica.” She can hear his frustration. He’s said her name like that many times. He’s speaking in the way that he does when he’s trying to control his temper. “Thought I’d save the explanations until we knew where you were. I’ll tell her on the way to get you.”

She knows this. Probably would have kept back even more than he did, but she never said that she wasn’t a hypocrite. She can very faintly hear the tapping noises from the keyboard in the silence as they all wait with bated breath for Mac’s word. 

It seems to take forever and then, “got it. She’s only a few hours north.”

“Veronica?” His relief is heard in his voice. “I’m going to call someone to get you out. We’re coming up. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“I’ll be here.” Really? Where else is she going to go? 

She hangs up the phone and then sits back, breath even for the first time since she woke up without her actively trying to regulate it. She can always count on him. Logan will always come find her when she needs him. 


End file.
